In Trivial Pursuit, a question in the science category asks: How many colors are there in the spectrum? This is the kind of question that can drive a science buff right up the wall. After all, a spectrum is, well, a spectrum--meaning a continuous range. Anyone who has ever looked at a rainbow knows there is no line demarcating where the red ends and the orange begins. Some cultures even clump blue and green into one color. In ancient Greece, there was no word for green. The word we know as green actually translates as "wet."

A Los Angeles high school science teacher returned to the classroom Friday two months after being suspended over concerns that two students had assembled "dangerous" science projects under his supervision. Both projects overseen by teacher Greg Schiller were capable of launching small objects. A staff member at the downtown Cortines School of Visual & Performing Arts had raised concerns about one of them. Both are common in science fairs. "I am very excited to be back with my students and help them prepare for the Advanced Placement tests, which are a week away," Schiller said Thursday.

Re "Big Science Isn't the Only One With Answers," Commentary, Dec. 29: Laura Nader and Roberto Gonzalez make a good point. There are aspects of non-Western traditions that deserve a second look by science. But they demonstrate a common mistake in assuming that there are other types of sciences. They are right: Science is defined not by laboratories or men in lab coats, but by the process of discovery. But Francis Bacon, almost 400 years ago, formulated the scientific method, a rigorous system of comparison between experimental and "control" data.

Re "Are we losing the tech race?," Opinion, April 20 Michael Teitelbaum presents common-sense advice about majoring in science. He echoes what proponents of the liberal arts have been saying for years: that it is not enough to specialize in one area of expertise, and that science students must gain broad intellectual skills developed through the humanities, arts and social sciences. However, I disagree with Teitelbaum's assessment that science education for non-science majors should be limited to K-12.

Re "Oh, sweet mystery," Opinion, Aug. 16 I had the pleasure of reading evolutionary biologist David P. Barash's Op-Ed article. As a scientist myself, and one who dabbled energetically in the history of science before devoting myself fully to scientific research, it is rare that I find something in the paper regarding policy or the teaching of science with which I agree wholeheartedly. There is another powerful force to draw in students: We can try to impart a sense of the possibility to do good works in the world; not in the sense of personal glory but in the great tradition of service to humankind.

High hopes for corn genome map Scientists this week revealed the genome sequence of corn. Agronomists hope the information buried in corn's 32,000 genes and 2.3 billion letters of DNA will help sustain the century-long improvement in yield and hardiness into an era of climate change and, possibly, food shortage. The sequencing, published Thursday in a package of research papers in Science and the Public Library of Science's PLoS Genetics, revealed that an astonishing 85% of the corn genome is made up of "transposable elements" -- short stretches of DNA that show evidence of having moved around in corn's 10 chromosomes at some point in evolution.

“Conservatives lose faith in science,” trumpeted the headline on a story in last week's Times. “A study … in the American Sociological Review concludes that trust in science among conservatives and frequent churchgoers has declined precipitously since 1974, when a national survey first asked people how much confidence they had in the scientific community. At that time, conservatives had the highest level of trust in scientists.” Though the article ran inside the paper on a weekday, it certainly didn't go unseen by Times letter writers.

I have been teaching and doing research at the university level for more than 40 years, which means that for more than four decades, I have been participating in a deception - benevolent and well intentioned, to be sure, but a deception nonetheless. As a scientist, I do science, and as a teacher and writer, I communicate it. That's where the deception comes in. When scientists speak to the public or to students, we talk about what we know, what science has discovered. Nothing wrong with this.

Are Republicans waging a war on science? That has been a foregone conclusion of liberal commentators since the beginnings of the George W. Bush administration, whose positions on climate change, stem-cell research and other issues seemed less informed by textbooks than by the Bible -- or Exxon Mobil's balance sheet. Yet referring to these political strategies as a "war on science" is little different from the GOP's hyperbolic claims about Democrats' "war on religion. " Except when it comes to climate change -- an issue on which nearly the entire Republican Party has chosen to ignore or shout down the conclusions of the scientific community -- most GOP candidates seem about as knowledgeable as their Democratic counterparts on scientific issues, even if those on the religious right often prefer nonscientific explanations for such phenomena as the origins of human beings.

A Los Angeles high school science teacher is returning to the classroom two months after being suspended over concerns that two students had assembled "dangerous" science projects under his supervision. Both projects overseen by teacher Greg Schiller were capable of launching small objects. A staff member at the downtown Cortines School of Visual & Performing Arts had raised concerns about one of them. Both are common in science fairs. "I am very excited to be back with my students and help them prepare for the Advanced Placement tests, which are a week away," Schiller said Thursday.

Before he loved anything else, Jean-Luc Godard loved genre: He famously dedicated his first feature film, "Breathless," to Monogram Pictures, one of the monarchs of Poverty Row B-picture production. But as "Breathless" demonstrated, Godard never did anything straight up. He did genre his own playful way, and never more so than in 1965's "Alphaville," a film that was part science fiction, part hard-boiled adventure, and all Godard. Playing for a week at the Nuart in West Los Angeles in a sharp new digital restoration, "Alphaville" is more than quintessential Godard.

"Fracking" - now there's a word that just begs for a bumper sticker. Short for "hydraulic fracturing" - the process of breaking open rock with high-pressure liquids to get at otherwise untappable oil and natural gas - fracking conjures up a welcome energy boom for some, ecological disaster for others. Mark Zoback - Stanford geophysicist since 1984, member of the National Academy of Engineering's Deepwater Horizon investigation committee, personal "decarbonizer," fracking expert - sees the problems and the potential for California.

We've all heard the dire pronouncements: U.S. science and technology is losing ground to its global competitors because of a nationwide shortage of scientists and engineers, due primarily to the many failures of K-12 education. But are these gloomy assertions accurate? Nearly all of the independent scholars and analysts who have examined the claims of widespread shortages have found little or no evidence to support them. Salaries in these occupations are generally flat, and unemployment rates are about the same or higher than in others requiring advanced education.

In February, Los Angeles Unified School District officials suspended a teacher after two of his students turned in science projects that administrators thought looked like guns. Even granting that school officials have a right to be hypersensitive these days about anything resembling a weapon, their decision to remove him from the classroom was a harmful overreaction. It's also hard to understand why the investigation into this seemingly simple matter has taken more than a month.

A popular Los Angeles high school science teacher has been suspended after students turned in projects that appeared dangerous to administrators, spurring a campaign calling for his return to the classroom. Students and parents have rallied around Greg Schiller after his suspension in February from the downtown Cortines School of Visual & Performing Arts. Supporters have organized a rally on his behalf at the campus for Thursday, gathered hundreds of signatures on a petition calling for his reinstatement and set up a social media page.

A popular Los Angeles high school science teacher has been suspended after students turned in projects that appeared dangerous to administrators, spurring a campaign calling for his return to the classroom. Students and parents have rallied around Greg Schiller after his suspension in February from the downtown Cortines School of Visual & Performing Arts. Supporters have organized a rally on his behalf at the campus scheduled for Thursday, gathered hundreds of signatures on a petition calling for his reinstatement and set up a social media page.

It was well known for many years that Japan's "scientific whaling" program was a sham, designed to get around the international moratorium on hunting whales. Almost no research on the animals came from Japanese scientists; instead, whale meat kept showing up in restaurants and school lunches. Finally, Australia, a whaling country until 1978 and now an avid opponent, called Japan's bluff over the hundreds of whales it killed each year in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary surrounding Antarctica.